NEWS BY MAIL.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11495, 24 November 1931, Page 6

NEWS BY MAIL.

AMAZING MYSTERY DEATHS

An amazing, mystery, involving tile deaths of two men and a £19,00;) estate, culminated when a Mr. C'has. Chapman was found dead in a wellknown hotel in Boston, F.S.A., following t.ho discovery of the battered body, of a Mr. Theodore Humbert, to whom Chapman had made over the estate. Chapman’s body ’ was found in the bathroom of his suite. A doctor who was ealhd in .stated that it was a case of suicide caused by an overdose of a drug. Some months before, Chapman, while in the throes of a heart attack from which- lie was not expected to recover, is alleged to have, made over the £19,000 to Humbert, who later proposed to sail io England to claim the estate. The claimant’s body, spattered with blood, and clad only hi pyjamas, was found in a lonely cottage near Norwalk, Connecticut. Ail anonymous friend, wlm identified Chapman*.*; body, said that he believed that the dead man had asked Humbert to give him back the deeds of the property, and that Humbert had refused to do so. This friend met Chapman on the day he died, and understood that he had learned that the rierht to the propertv had been sold for £2O-000. When Chapman’s body was found he was holding in his hand a photograph of Humbert, on which he bad written, “My pal, Teddy.” Nearby were six emptv phials, which had contained a narcotic. Chapman, who was years of age, was reputed to possess a fortune of about £IOO.OOO, and to have his homo in England.

AMERICAN’S CURIOUS SOUVENIRS, ' It is common for foreign visitors to Paris to take home a souvenir ol their stay. Mr. Burton Holmes, an American explorer and maker ol travel films, is about to take back to the United States a marble-topped cafe table (writes the correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” at Paris). For more than 46 years Mr. Holmes has been n regular visitor to Paris, and always he has spent many hours on the terrace of a large cafe near the Opera watching the tide of life go bv. He saw the old three-horse nmnlbuses gradually give pLace to motor-cars, and then to the sixwheeled motor-omnibuses which now mn along the Grands Boulevards. His favorite observation post always was a small marble-topped table in a corner of the terrace. On the eve of bin departure for New York he deckled that ho did not care to part with his favorite table, and thereupon he arranged to buy it. Tt is now to bo sent to his home in New York, so that there, as it supports hig elbows in familiar pose, he may recall the visions of the city it as a ldnd of magic carpet to' transport him to tlj° boulevards again.